Tiny TV-B-Gone turns off most any boob tube

Inventor Mitch Altman shows off his new "TV-B-Gone," just the thing to turn off that pesky TV showing "Oprah" next to him.

Inventor Mitch Altman shows off his new "TV-B-Gone," just the thing to turn off that pesky TV showing "Oprah" next to him.

Photo: / Associated Press

Photo: / Associated Press

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Inventor Mitch Altman shows off his new "TV-B-Gone," just the thing to turn off that pesky TV showing "Oprah" next to him.

Inventor Mitch Altman shows off his new "TV-B-Gone," just the thing to turn off that pesky TV showing "Oprah" next to him.

Photo: / Associated Press

Tiny TV-B-Gone turns off most any boob tube

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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Plenty of people love television, but apparently some have had enough of it.

A new key chain gadget that lets people turn off most TVs -- anywhere from airports to restaurants -- is selling at a faster clip than it would take most people to surf the channels on their boob tubes.

"I thought there would just be a trickle, but we are swamped," said the inventor, Mitch Altman of San Francisco, a self-described geek with a master's degree in electrical engineering. "I didn't know there were so many people who were into turning TV off."

Hundreds of orders for Altman's $14.99 TV-B-Gone gadget poured in one day earlier this week after the tiny remote control was announced in Wired magazine and other online media outlets. At times, the unexpected attention overloaded and crashed the Web site of his company, Cornfield Electronics.

The key chain fob works like a universal remote control but one that only turns TVs on or off.

With a zap of a button, the gizmo goes through a string of about 200 infrared codes that control the power for about 1,000 television models.

Altman said the majority of TVs should react within 17 seconds, although it takes a little more than a minute for the gizmo to emit all the trigger codes.

"I can be mischievous, but I'm not going to do anything malicious, and I don't want to make anyone's life more difficult," Altman said, admitting that he hasn't owned a television in 24 years.

"I just don't like TV, and I'd like people to think more about this powerful medium in their lives."

Altman does not contend that all TV is bad.

"There's just so little time in all of our lives," he said. "Why should we spend so much time on something we don't necessarily enjoy?"

So beware: Next time you're at a laundry or restaurant, the blaring TV might just mysteriously turn off.